Your Monster, a new romantic comedy by director-writer Caroline Lindy, began streaming on Max on January 24th. The independent film premiered at Sundance Film Festival and climbed to the top of Max’s trending charts quickly, currently the fourth most popular movie this week. A classicBeauty and the BeastorFrankenstein-type situation,Your Monsterfollows a young actress named Laura as she entertains anunexpected romance with a wolfman-like creaturethat lives in her house.
However, the first words that grace the screen are “based on a trueish story.” How can this possibly be the case, considering the otherworldly proportions of this love story? Well, the answer is part literal and part metaphorical. Read on to find out the backstory of howYour Monsterdraws from Lindy’s past.
Your Monster
‘Your Monster’: A Brief Overview
Laura Franco (Melissa Barrera) is a 20-something actressliving in New York with her playwright/composer boyfriend, Jacob (Edmund Donovan). The two are deeply in love and artistically collaborate on the new musical Jacob is writing. Jacob has explicitly written the lead role for Laura, and the two spend hours at the piano molding the character and writing the show with her in mind. When the show is going to go to Broadway, it feels like all of Laura’s dreams have come true. That is, untilshe receives a life-altering cancer diagnosis. Jacob, overwhelmed by the reality of having a significant other with cancer, breaks up with Laura while she is in the hospital.
When Laura is released, she has no choice but to move back into her childhood home, alone.There, she discovers “Monster” (Tommy Dewey), a beast-like individual that dwells in her closet and has been since Laura’s childhood. Initially, Monster demands that Laura leave, but eventuallythe two bond over musicals and life, and he allows her to stay. Laura’s best friend, Mazie (Kayla Foster), alerts her that Jacob’s play is holding auditions. Monster convinces Laura to audition, claiming that the part written for her is rightfully hers and should have been held on her behalf. Jacob casts a Broadway star named Jackie Dennon instead of Laura, but offers her an understudy/ensemble track as consolation. Laura continues to bond with Monster at home and goes to rehearsals during the day.
There are quite a few twists and turns and dramas along the way, but essentially,Laura and Monster fall in love once she realizes, because of him, how truly vile it was for Jacob to abandon her at her most vulnerable. She also comes to find out that Jacob had been sleeping with her best friend, Mazie, for quite a while, and not Jackie as she had previously assumed. Betrayed by all that she trusted and loved most (except for her Monster), Laura finally receives a cancer-free diagnosis.
This is when she decides to join in cahoots with Jackie, who has also had enough of Jacob, to secretly take over the lead role on opening night. However,this takes a much more sinister turn than expected when Monster literally tears Jacob’s throat out at intermission. The curtains open to reveal a blood-covered but song-belting laura, and Jacob’s corpse on stage, to the audience’s shock and horror. The screen goes black.
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The Real Monster
When Caroline Lindy was 23, she received a life-threatening health diagnosis, like Laura. Then, she was dumped by her boyfriend within the same week. In an interview with the Sundance Institute, she describes a prolonged depression she experienced in recovering from a hemicolectomy alone. Eventually, the feeling it caused was “fury.” She wondered, “How much would it cost to hire a hitman to murder my ex?” Instead, she turned that rage into a film:Your Monster.
Lindy has been clear that the monster in the film is an allegory for our own monsters, our demons, so to speak.It is a film about learning to love the dark, complicated parts of yourself, about coming to terms with trauma. It is about getting inside and around repressed emotions so we can be free from them. So, no,there was never a New York woman makingout with a Sasquatch in her closet(at least not officially documented). However, there was a woman scorned, and she did really experience the terrible catalyst forYour Monster
At the same time, Lindy is a serious advocate for thepreservation of the romantic comedy genre, andYour Monsteris a love-letter to her own unabashed, girlish devotion to the cause. On the topic, Lindy said, “the rom-com is a genre in decline, and I am making it my life’s mission to revive it.” It seems that romantic comedy was always going to be the exact medium, and the story just turned out to be an extended (literally hairy) metaphor about self-acceptance.
Rest assured, however, that Lindy has gotten her just deserts, and then some.Your Monsteris performing well on Max’s platform and emotionally with viewers all around the world. Perhaps even sweeter, Lindy has made what sounds like a real-life rom-com connection in fellow director Daniel Roher, who won the festival favorite at Sundance just a couple of years before Lindy competed for his filmNavalny!When asked how her husband reacted whenYour Monsterwas admitted to Sundance, Lindy responded that he, “started sobbing immediately.”
